Above the fold

The EU’s fiftieth birthday, celebrated at the weekend in Berlin, brought bonhomie and some grumbling. In an unusually personal speech drawing on childhood memories of East Berlin, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, extolled the union’s virtues, while prodding its members towards institutional reform. She called for a “short and concentrated” intergovernmental conference by the end of the year to ratify a new constitution by 2009. Diplomats said they expected a smaller treaty re-branded under a different name, without state-like symbols of anthems and flags.

Ségolène Royal has declared her support for Turkey’s bid to join the EU. The French presidential candidate had been criticised for a previous flimsy answer that her view on the subject would be “that of the French people”. Her new-found position is a risky strategy. Turkish membership is deeply unpopular in France and opposed by her rivals in the presidential race. Meanwhile, François Bayrou tries to woo the business vote. In an interview, he attacks the 35-hour week and calls for the state “to stop acting as the boss of everything”.

In Nizhny Novgorod, riot police arrested dozens of protesters, quashing an anti-Kremlin demonstration before it had begun. It was the third march organised by the Other Russia, a coalition of liberals and radicals led by Garry Kasparov, a former chess champion, and Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister. Organisers of the march complained that a cultural fair, complete with folk dances and long-winded speeches, had been planned for the same weekend to keep them out of the city centre. City officials insisted it was an annual event.

Iran’s detention of 15 Royal Navy sailors is “unjustified and wrong”, said Tony Blair, the British prime minister, rejecting the Iranian charge that the sailors were trespassing in their waters. The sailors were seized at gunpoint by forces said to be Iranian Revolutionary Guards. British officials have not been told where the group is being held, and there are concerns they could be caught up in the wider crisis about Iran’s nuclear programme.

A threat to shut down the Northern Ireland assembly could be withdrawn if the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin can reach a compromise timetable for restoring self-rule. Ian Paisley, the DUP leader, and Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Féin, are expected to hold their first ever face-to-face talks, a big break with the DUP’s policy of non-contact.

The International Herald Tribune reports on a row between the Spanish government and fashion designers. Earlier this month, Dolce and Gabbana, an Italian fashion house, announced it would suspend all advertising in Spain after a government-affiliated quasi-NGO called for the withdrawal of an ad it deemed sexist. The company defended its ad, which showed a man pinning a woman to the ground by her wrist, complaining Spain had shown “strong censorship feeling”. Since coming to power in 2004, the Socialist government has been keen to change Spain’s macho culture.